


Cyclical

by Nympha_Alba



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Reincarnation, once and future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3753541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nympha_Alba/pseuds/Nympha_Alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When autumn slices into summer like a blade, Merlin knows it's time to go. His hands are cold, his focus shatters, his voice fades to a whisper.</p><p>"Will you be back?" Arthur asks.</p><p>And Merlin promises, because how could he not come back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyclical

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mssdare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Before winter comes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2169495) by [mssdare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/pseuds/mssdare). 



> I absolutely loved your beautiful, poetic story, Mssdare, and I knew that was the one I had to remix!  
> Heaps of thanks to EachPeachPearPlum for the quick beta, and of course to the mods for organising this.

They say he's the Lord of Life and Death, that he's Emrys, Death itself. Many say his name in a whisper and avert their faces when he walks by.

How are they to know that Merlin is Emrys, but that he doesn't hold life and death in his hands? They're only trying to make sense of things, to explain what they can't understand. Merlin never tells them how wrong they are, how the magic of Emrys is of another kind.

Merlin's magic makes him wake with the spring and wake spring in his turn; he brushes a hand over the grass in the meadow and wakes the flowers sleeping there, he touches the tip of a branch and makes the whole forest bloom.

He takes human form to walk among humans, visible to their eyes, but his body never brings him joy. Not until Arthur.

*

The moment he touches Arthur, he knows everything has changed. The restlessness in him dies, his butterfly-soul settles. Stay, the world tells him. Stay.

*

Summer is hot around them as they lie in the meadow, down by the stream. The grass makes a criss-cross imprint on their skin, first on Arthur's back and then on Merlin's, as their bodies slide sweat-slick against each other. Merlin looks up at the sky past Arthur's shoulder, feeling the joy of his body, the joy of being bound to the earth, heavy and warm. The heat makes the air hazy.

There's a smile in Arthur's eyes.

"Race you to the stream," Arthur says and Merlin runs, laughing as he reaches the water first.

*

Arthur's bed is soft and wide, receiving them like an embrace. Outside the night is fragile and blue, a summer night that only lasts a few hours. The metallic music of a nightingale weaves its way into Arthur's chambers, mingling with the sound of breathing and Merlin's mewl as he needs Arthur to go faster, not make him wait. Harder. Bind them to the here and now.

*

When autumn slices into summer like a blade, Merlin knows it's time to go. His hands are cold, his focus shatters, his voice fades to a whisper.

Arthur looks lonely and lost in the expanse of his bed with only himself to fill it.

"Will you be back?" he asks.

And Merlin promises, because how could he not come back?

*

Year after year, Merlin returns, walking with spring in his wake. Arthur receives him with joy.

There is sun on their skin and cool water after, the sweetness of fruit in their mouths, the saltiness of sweat and seed on their tongues. They run barefoot on the cool evening grass and bathe in the moonlit stream, but always retire to Arthur's bed to shut out the world.

Year after year, when the days turn short, when the light turns pale and the leaves no longer have the strength to hold on to their trees, then Merlin, too, weakens and fades. Arthur has learned the signs by now. He knows when the time has come.

"I can keep you warm," he says; "let me keep you warm. I'll stoke the fire and cover you with seven layers of fur, if you'll only stay. Will you stay?"

"I can't," Merlin whispers, and his voice is translucent and brittle like the first shimmer of ice on water.

"Go, then," Arthur says, as if Merlin can only leave with permission from the High King.

Aware that the distance between them increases with each step, Merlin leaves the castle. He walks over glittering frost, deep into the woods, until he reaches a sunny clearing. Everything is silent around him. No one has followed. There, in the middle of the sunlit space, Merlin stops and stretches out his arms.

*

They say that Emrys descends Underground when winter comes. They believe that he spends his winters there, that he sleeps in the dark earth. Like a plant. How little they know.

Merlin is aware that Arthur is curious, that he wants to see how Merlin leaves and returns, but Merlin can't let him. It would be too much for the human mind to watch someone vanish into nothing, appear out of nothing. Although humans believe in spirit and soul, they can't truly conceive of an existence without physical form. Merlin doesn't want to tell Arthur that during the cold months, he is pure spirit.

In the sunny clearing, Merlin closes his eyes and dissolves.

*

Spring stirs and Merlin wakes, and it's time to return to the human world.

Materialising, he always finds himself in a dense thicket, with thorns and dry twigs scratching and scraping, snagging and catching. As if he has to be re-born in pain. 

When he reaches Arthur his clothes are torn and his skin cut and bleeding, his fingernails dirty and broken. Arthur believes he has clawed his way out of the Underground and meets him with tender murmurs, a warm washcloth and the last dried meat of the winter. When Merlin is warm and happy, firmly back in Arthur's world, Arthur pulls him into bed, down against his own warm, hard body.

*

The crown is on Arthur's head; his rule is one of fairness and wisdom. Merlin at the High King's side is a familiar sight, and nothing that anyone questions. This is what Merlin was born to do. To be by Arthur's side.

*

They say that Emrys is the Lord of Life and Death, but if he'd been, he wouldn't have had to watch Arthur die. He could have saved Arthur from Mordred's blade and kept him safe, always, always.

They say that the grief of Emrys when the High King is gone will bring an eternal winter.  


Merlin has no power to hold winter in his grip, and if he did, he wouldn't. Because Arthur will return, and if there is no spring, Merlin can't take human form.

The winter is cold, the human in Merlin sleeps, the demon rests, there's nothing but silence and waiting.

Until spring, at long last, returns.

*

There's a cave filled with glittering crystals that draws Merlin like a moth to a flame. Arthur is gone, Merlin is alone, there's no one else to ask. Each spring, Merlin visits the cave.

"Tell me," he says to the crystals. "Tell me when he'll return."

But the crystals take no orders and only show what they want. Fragments and pieces, nothing whole. Merlin sees glimpses of a strange world with metal shapes and square buildings of grey rock, a world where things move at a dizzying speed. He sees yet another world with velvet coattails and shoes with buckles and heels; he sees white linen stained with red.

"When?" he asks the crystals.

But the crystals are silent, the images gone.

*

When Arthur returns, frost still covers the ground and snow dusts the tops of the hills, and Merlin's joy is marred by impatience until the sun reaches its mark and it's time for Merlin to enter the human world.

The castle is grand with black and white floors, sweeping staircases, silk-panelled walls. Merlin cloaks himself in magic until he stands outside Arthur's door. He opens it slowly, unsure how he'll be received.

Arthur, seated at a desk by the window writing with a goose-feather pen, turns at the sound and springs up, dropping the pen to the floor, spattering ink.

"Merlin!"

*

"I don't want to leave these chambers ever again," Arthur murmurs against Merlin's neck.

The room is bathed in light from candles and fire; there is a large, rumpled bed with eiderdowns and linen and the finest, softest silk, and Arthur and Merlin entangled as if they'll never let go.

"Will you always be here?" Arthur asks.

The answer to that is yes, but it's an "always" that Arthur can't fathom.

"I'll always come back in the spring," Merlin says.

"And leave in the autumn." Arthur turns on his back, looks up at the canopy of the bed.

Merlin memorizes his profile just as it looks now. Whatever happens, he wants to keep that image with him. "I have to."

Arthur props himself up on an elbow, strokes a fingertip along Merlin's collarbone and leans down to kiss him.

"Then let's make the most of the time that we have."

In reply, Merlin's lips part under Arthur's and his fingers find Arthur's hips.

It's something every human knows, and Arthur has taught Merlin this, too: it's so much worse to be left than to leave.

*

This Arthur looks so different, with his velvet coats and his waistcoats of embroidered silk, with his buckled shoes and strange, powdered wigs. But his eyes are the same as before, and his voice and his kisses, and he still listens to Merlin's advice as Merlin stands by his chair.

*

"Who are you really, Merlin?" Arthur asks. " _What_ are you?"

He is pale and ill, sweating and coughing, but he won't let go.

"Merlin, you have to tell me. Are you human?"

"Partly." Merlin's voice is barely audible.

Arthur stares at him, his eyes dark. "You're _partly_ human? What's the part of you that isn't?"

"I'm part human, Arthur. It's all you need. It's all _we_ need."

"Answer me, Merlin. I need to know." Arthur is wracked by another fit of coughing, staining his white handkerchief red, and when it's over he's too exhausted for questions.

Merlin places a hand on his forehead and uses his magic to soothe.

*

If Emrys had been the Lord of Life and Death, he wouldn't have had to watch Arthur die yet _again_.

*

Arthur is gone and the world is empty, but the crystals promise Merlin a future. In the fast-moving world of metal and stone, amid the clamour of a vast city, Arthur will return and Merlin will be by his side.

In the sunlit clearing outside the cave, Merlin stretches out his arms, closes his eyes and dissolves.

There's nothing to do but wait.


End file.
